


A Piece of You With Me Always

by madelinecookie



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Confusion, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Sex, F/M, Fatherhood, John is a Bit Not Good, M/M, Parentlock, Pining Sherlock, Reverse Reichenbach, Romance, Slow Burn, but he figures it out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-25 04:48:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10757016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madelinecookie/pseuds/madelinecookie
Summary: In which John leaves his daughter in Sherlock's care indefinitely to take down Mary and Moriarty once and for all, but unintentionally tears Sherlock apart in the process. When he returns from his time away will he be able to repair the seemingly irrevocably broken?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Rating for later chapters. 
> 
> Kudos, comments, and suggestions are always welcome!

The pain was astounding. The bullet had ripped through his body and no matter how deeply he fell into his mind palace, he couldn’t escape the tearing of his flesh and sticky, warm flow of his blood. He was somehow both distantly and alarmingly aware that he was dying. 

He had made one extra deduction, but it wasn’t the right one. How had he missed the signs? Had sentiment truly blinded him so completely to what had been in front of his eyes all along? Then again, if he had deduced sooner, what would he have done? 

He would have pulled everything apart and crawled over the broken pieces to beg for forgiveness and a second chance. A sudden and familiar ache rips through his chest and he knows it’s not from the bullet imbedded in his body. Instead, it is from the constant throbbing pain that lives inside his ribcage that reminds him that his stupidity and inability to communicate cost him the most important thing in the world. 

Now it was too late. 

The front of his shirt was being pulled open and there were voices he didn’t recognize, but he couldn’t resurface. If he could just open his eyes, find the one person who could make dying a little sweeter, then maybe he would finally be able to say all the things he meant to say, but never had. 

Maybe he would search for those familiar cobalt eyes, find the smile there that would warm his cold body and give him the last push he needed to say the truth. He was an articulate man when he wanted to be and maybe he would be able to say what he had really meant to say – clarify the obvious just in case he hadn’t been forthcoming enough. 

_John, do you remember at the wedding reception when I said my first and only vow? Do you remember how I said that whatever happens, from now on I swear I will always be there, always, for all three of you? Would you allow me to amend my previous vow? Please? I know that I am a ridiculous man, but John, let me make the vow that I truly want to make. What I should have said was that no matter what happens I will always be there for the two of you – you and baby Watson. Not Mary, because she doesn’t love you John, I do. It’s me who loves you most in the world and I should have told you before now, before the wedding, and even before I threw myself off the rooftop of Bart’s, but I couldn’t and now it’s too late. But, John Watson, you have to believe me that I would do anything – have done anything – for you and no one can love you like I can. If only I could have told you sooner…_

And now, locked in his mind, being tormented by Moriarty, he couldn’t seem to find the will to push on, to breathe again, to survive. There had been many opportunities in his life to get things right, to be better, to be more human and less a machine, but he hadn’t taken them. Now, he couldn't help but wonder if this was his punishment for a lifetime of forced apathy. 

_I would have taken you in anyway I could I have had you, John, any piece you would have given me. I would have done anything to keep you alive and happy – anything at all. Will you tell baby Watson about me? Will you miss me again, this time, when I am gone for real? Will you find closure easier now that you were there with me when I died? Will you ever know that it was your wife who killed me?_

”You’re letting him down, Sherlock. John Watson is definitely in danger.” 

No, no, no. 

”You’re letting them down, Sherlock. John Watson and baby Watson are definitely in danger.” 

He was letting them both down. He was breaking his vow. 

Cobalt eyes, graying hair, and cable knit jumpers.  
Takeaway, crap telly, and midnight foot chases through London.  
Baker Street, Earl Grey tea, and fireside conversation.  
Friendship, family, and love and love and _love._  
Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.

Sherlock lives means John Watson lives. 

Love and love and _endless, all consuming, unconditional love._

Sherlock Holmes had to live because in his dying moments he realized he had something to live for.


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last words, revelations, decisions, and love, love, _love._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating for later chapters.
> 
> Kudos, comments, and suggestions are always welcome!

Everything was spiraling out of control. No matter how insane things had been in the past there was always the comfort that they were a team. It was supposed to be them against the rest of the world, but that wasn’t working anymore, hadn’t been working for a while. Where they once had existed in tandem, as a unit, they no longer seemed capable of synchronizing their movements or their thoughts and feelings. 

John knew it hadn’t been the same since Sherlock had thrown himself to his death, leaving him on the run for years and John to despair and wilt in his absence. Despite the truth, despite the threat of Moriarty and Sherlock’s selflessness when it had come to saving his blogger’s life, John couldn’t separate his anger and his grief enough to see clearly that Sherlock’s return was another attempt to save his life. 

He can remember their first case together, coming back to his new home at 221B after Angelo’s and a breathtaking chase to find the police in the middle of a drug’s bust. It had been confusing and admittedly disappointing to learn of Sherlock’s illicit substance abuse, but the memory stands out more intensely against the backdrop of others because of Sherlock’s words to him. 

With those calculating, maddening sea foam eyes, Sherlock had rounded on him, trying to work out a problem that involved sentiment and humanity and at the time, Sherlock hadn’t been equipped with the knowledge or experience to solve it on his own. 

“But if you were dying, if you’d been murdered, in your very last few seconds what would you say?”

The energy radiating from him was like lightening; overwhelming and intoxicating, impossible to catch and bottle up. John had looked at him seriously and answered confidently. 

“Please, God, let me live.” 

Sherlock hadn’t been impressed.

“Oh, use your imagination!” 

But John didn’t have to use his imagination and he said as much which both seemed to momentarily confuse and humble Sherlock. Now, after so much time and distance and many, many _moments_ , that is what John remembers because he hadn’t known until much later that those words weren’t accurate last words. Bleeding out under the blazing sun of Afghanistan wouldn’t be John’s last brush with death and his muttered words of desperation had come before he had known Sherlock at all. 

No, his last words had been repeated, in array of variations several times over the years as he was faced time after time with the prospect of being murdered by not just gunman and criminals, but life and unfairness and the constant looming possibility that he would lose the most important thing – most important person – in the world.   
And each time he was faced with the prospect of dying, he used his last seconds to plead to Sherlock for life his life.

When he was hours away from stuffing a gun into his mouth, he had begged, unknowingly, in St. Bart’s lab. Sherlock had extended his hand seeking a phone and John, unaware of the plea for life he was making, had said, “Here, use mine.” 

On the rain soaked street in front of Bart’s, eyes squinting towards the sky with Sherlock’s voice in his ear telling him lies and goodbyes, John had screamed out, a desperate, agonized cry for help, “No, SHERLOCK!” 

Later, standing at the foot of an empty grave, John had begged for his life, “No, please, there’s just one more thing, mate, one more thing; one more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don’t…be…dead. Would you do -? Just for me, just stop it! Stop this!” 

Standing on a train, time slipping by far too slowly, a bomb beneath their feet, their moments reaching an end, he had said last words again. At long last they were finally together again and he had so much he needed to say, but he couldn’t find the right words, so instead he managed with, “Yes, of course I forgive you!” 

When John was on the cusp of life and death for entirely different reasons and he needed to know, needed the truth more than anything else in the world, he had begged for his life, begged for Sherlock to know that it wasn’t the end of them, but he couldn’t speak. Instead, he had pleaded with his eyes, his hands on both Mary and Sherlock, torn down the middle, as the wedding guests danced around them and the existence of a baby had just been deduced. John Watson had known in that moment he was a dying a man. 

And while Sherlock collapsed motionless and bleeding out on the carpet of Magnusson’s office, John was watching them both die, but instead of saying the right last words he yelled out, “Sherlock? We’re losing you, Sherlock.”

When what he should have used both their dying breaths to say was, _”I love you, Sherlock. I need you here with me. I need you to survive – I need you to live so I can live too!”_

Sometimes the truth is far more painful than the lies we tell ourselves, but John Watson couldn’t avoid his truth anymore; he needed Sherlock Holmes, needed him in any way he could have him and it was high time that he do something about it. 

Sherlock lives means John Watson lives. He had written those words and he had meant them – he had always meant them because together they lived, but separate they couldn’t survive. 

\+ - + - + - +

The steady beep of the heart monitor kept sleep at bay and no matter how uncomfortable his position, John refused to let go of Sherlock’s hand. Their fingers were intertwined and he tried to ignore how Sherlock’s grip was loose and still, evidence of the detective’s condition. 

It had been almost two days since they had broken into Charles Magnussen’s office and Sherlock had taken a bullet to the chest. After John had rode in the ambulance with Sherlock, he had watched from the corner of the room as his best friend, his world, died on the table. It had felt like watching Sherlock jump again, but this time it was even more agonizing because he knew that it wasn’t an act, this time it was forever. 

But then Sherlock had sucked in a rasping breath and John’s vision snapped quickly, the world righted itself again. He had rushed to Sherlock’s side and looked into the blinking bleary, eyes he thought he would never see again and listened as words tumbled from his friend’s mouth. 

“Mary!” 

“No, Sherlock, Mary isn’t here. It’s just me. Everything is going to be okay now,” John had said shakily, his voice wavering with overwhelming relief as he gripped the long pale arm that was trying to reach for him. 

“You’re in danger, John. The baby is in danger, I have to protect the baby. I have to protect both of you, I can’t lose you!” 

Sherlock was crying and his voice was rising louder as doctors surrounded them in flurries of movement as they tried to do their job around John. 

“Shh, calm down. I’m safe and the baby is safe, Sherlock. You’re safe too.” John soothed, his throat tightening and stomach knotting. He had never seen Sherlock look so panicked, not even in Baskerville. “You have to tell me who shot you, Sherlock, okay? I need to know who shot you.” 

The detective was rolling his head back and forth as tears spilled from his eyes streaking across his sharp cheekbones. There was a deep and dark kind of despair working itself within Sherlock and it was sucking away his brilliance to leave just a broken man. John’s hand tightened on his arm and the touch seemed to center the distraught man for a moment, his crying eyes fixing on John’s stinging ones. 

“John…” 

“Yes, I’m here Sherlock, I’m here.” 

“I don’t mind your jumpers, they’re quite nice actually.” 

John let out a surprised hiccup of laughter at Sherlock’s words. He was beginning to fade again, but John knew his vitals were stabilizing and he had come back from the dead again to pull through. 

“Is that so? I’m not going to let you forget you said that, you know?” 

“And your eyes, I love those.” 

John’s breath hitched. “Oh?” 

“I love all of you, every single piece of you, John.” 

Sherlock’s words were beginning to slow and become drawn out. John couldn’t speak, his chest felt ready to burst with the emotions mounting inside of him. 

“Listen to me, I made a vow. Do you remember?” 

“I remember, Sherlock,” John whispered, a traitorous tear catching on his eyelashes. 

“I promise to always be there for you, both of you, but Mary is bad, John. We both got it wrong…” 

His blood turned to ice and for a beat he didn’t know what to say, but he felt the pull of understanding in the back of his mind. Later, he would recognize that maybe he had always known on some level that Mary wasn’t who she said was, but in that moment, he felt blindsided. 

“W-what do you mean we both got it wrong? Sherlock?” 

Sherlock had stilled, his eyes closing, and his breathing, although still erratic, far more controlled and regulated then before. He was slipping into unconsciousness again. 

“No, Sherlock, what do you mean?” 

“Dr. Watson, he isn’t going to be able to wake up right now.” John looked up to one of the emergency doctors who had been working on Sherlock and could feel himself come back to the reality of the situation. “We’ve given him a lot of drugs to maintain the pain and it’s going to keep him under for a while. It’s a miracle that he’s even alive right now. He clearly has some fight in him.” 

John nodded numbly and stood for a moment longer holding Sherlock’s arm before he was forced to let go as they moved his friend to another room. No one asked him whether he was family or if he could stay with Sherlock and that was fine because John wasn’t going to leave him – not again. 

Since then he taken vigil next to Sherlock’s bed, unmoving and unseeing. His phone had rung a few times and he had spoken briefly to Lestrade and Mycroft, but that was it. Mary had phoned and texted him, but for some reason John couldn’t bring himself to answer. Instead, he asked Lestrade to get in touch with her while John tried to understand what was happening.

Things were forming in his mind, the pieces pulling together thread by thread until he felt a heaviness sitting in the pit of his stomach that weighed him down. Emotions were complex and difficult for John without the added frustrations of gunshot wounds and insane criminals, but he knew he needed to work through his confusion. For himself and for Sherlock. 

Before Sherlock had faked his death, things had still been complex and messy, but they had also been comfortable. After the pool incident and Sherlock’s strange experience with Irene Adler, John had settled into a life that lacked routine and normalcy, but fulfilled him in a way he was content with. He had given up dating, had stopped trying to make things outside of his life with Sherlock work and all the confusing emotions he’d been pushing down were remerging, but it was okay. The life they were building together allowed for him to begin noticing and embracing how his heart stuttered and clenched every time Sherlock brushed against him and how he wanted more, more, _more_. 

But the sound of Sherlock’s skull cracking against the pavement below Bart’s had stopped life completely and any emotions John had recognized suddenly were too painful. For years John didn’t want to feel the loss, feel the emptiness where Sherlock had once been, and so his love was shelved, avoided, and hidden. 

Mary had helped enough to spark hope, but it paled in comparison to the fire that blazed when Sherlock returned. Nothing could ever compare to the warmth and completeness that Sherlock brought to his life. 

Even though John’s infinite love never wavered, circumstances had changed and although Sherlock’s return resulted in breathing life back into John, he still hadn’t known how the detective felt about him. It wasn’t until now, after the wedding and a baby and dying on a cold metal slab, that John knew Sherlock loved him, but still the confusion lingered. 

Now what? 

Sherlock’s hand twitched in John’s and the stab of hope struck his chest, but still the detective didn’t open his eyes. It was becoming clearer that maybe John would have to work out these problems on his own. 

Or maybe not…

Keeping his fingers wrapped in Sherlock’s larger hand, John pulled out his phone and made a phone call. 

“Bring me Mary’s file.” 

\+ - + - + - +

“I admit that I am not surprised by your call, Dr. Watson.” 

Mycroft Holmes looked down at the smaller man, but his usual coldness lacked in intensity. There were dark circles under his eyes and John wondered if Sherlock’s brush with death was taking a toll on his older brother. They were sitting in hard plastic chairs outside of Sherlock’s room, John refusing to put anymore distance between himself and the unconscious detective. 

“Well, it seems that I am the last person to have questions about Mary,” John said wearily, his hand scrubbing at the whiskers on his face. He needed a shave and a hot shower, but that could wait. “Did you bring the file?” 

“Yes, but I’m not sure you should read it,” Mycroft said steadily, his hands clasped tightly around the handle of his umbrella. 

“Why not?” John asked, immediately defensive. No matter what happened over the years, John constantly felt as though the older Holmes would always view him as weak, lesser in every way to Sherlock. It festered at him endlessly despite the fact that he didn’t necessarily blame Mycroft for his opinion – he was inferior in every way to the brilliant Sherlock Holmes and he knew it. 

“John,” Mycroft said with more tenderness then John had ever heard from him. “I don’t think you are going to like what you find here. I suspect you’ve already worked out enough to know that your wife shot Sherlock, but it might not be necessary for you to know any more than that.” 

It was like all the air was pulled from his lungs as he heard Mycroft confirm what he had been dreading. How could she do this to Sherlock? How could she have done this to John? 

For a moment, John considered heeding Mycroft’s warning, but knew he wouldn’t rest until he knew the truth, the entire truth. Shaking his head hard John extended his hand, asking silently for the information he desperately needed. 

Mycroft looked at him intently for several long breaths before pulling a rather thick folder from inside his coat and handing it to the doctor. John tried to school his features as he opened the cover and began reading about the woman he thought he knew. 

After what felt like hours the words began to swim on the page as John read. He felt a throb in his temples and his chest was tight with fear and anxiety. Things were far worse than he could have ever imagined and he tried to swallow the rising guilt for allowing this woman into their lives. 

“Does Sherlock know?” 

“No, but I am sure he will work it out quickly enough when he finally decides to grace us with his presence.” 

John gave a nod and stared unseeing at the tiled floor for many minutes as his mind started to form a plan.

“We have to do something, Mycroft.” John said firmly, his heart pounding painfully. “She isn’t just dangerous to Sherlock, but to the baby too. Jesus, she probably doesn’t even want the baby.” 

“I have considered many options, but none are favorable.” 

“Not doing something isn’t an option,” John said more forcefully then he intended. “She has connections to Moriarty and if her file indicates anything it’s that she will stop at nothing to get what she wants.” 

There was a pause and it felt heavy. John turned his head to Mycroft and could see something unpleasant there.

“What? Tell me, Mycroft.” 

“Have you considered what it is exactly she wants, John?”

John was quiet as he thought, the pull of comprehension tugging at the back of his mind. 

“What are you saying?” 

“What I am saying is that she put a bullet in my brother instead of just asking for help with Magnussen. It seems to me that although she is tied with Moriarty’s network, her only concern, or at least the thing she wants most, the thing she would kill for, is you.” 

His words sank in and John’s breath hitched. 

“Oh god,” he whispered. 

“Right now, she doesn’t know that you know she shot Sherlock, but it won’t be long till he wakes up and she will have to decide whether to end him or not. Mary is a clever woman and it probably hasn’t escaped her notice the depth of your devotion to Sherlock. She probably interprets this as a threat to her life with you just as she likely views the baby as a threat. Anything or anyone that is in the way of her and you appears to be intolerable in her eyes. We aren’t dealing with a confused, wronged damsel in distress. The reality is that we either eliminate the threat…” 

“The baby!” John interrupted. 

“Or we give her what she wants.” Mycroft finished, his eyes trained on John with an intensity that reminded him of Sherlock making his chest ache. 

All the pieces fell into place suddenly and violently, John’s eyes snapping closed with the force of it. Sherlock was in immeasurable danger while Mary lived simply because John loved Sherlock, but taking down Mary now meant losing his unborn child and that was inconceivable to John. He had never wanted to be a father, especially under these circumstances, but now everything was different, he didn’t want to lose that. 

Even with Mary and Moriarty dead it didn’t mean that they were safe. If she could hide her connections from Sherlock while he was away for those years then who was to say that there weren’t more people waiting for her to fail so they could finish the job? The constant hum of danger had always been in the background with Sherlock, but it had reached new, deafening heights every day that nothing was done. 

_Give her what she wants._

If he could somehow convince her that he would pick her over everyone – even Sherlock and the baby – maybe he could finish what Sherlock had started when he jumped from Bart’s. 

“He won’t let you go,” the older Holmes said as though he could read John’s mind. 

“Not if thinks that I am doing it to protect him, but maybe if he thinks I want to go.” 

The words left John’s mouth and he felt them sit heavy in the air and he thought maybe he would be sick on the hospital floor. He had never loved Mary, at least never enough to surpass Sherlock, and the thought of leaving behind his detective was tearing him apart. 

“Do you think it wise to lie to him?” 

“What other choice do I have?” John snapped, his eyes blazing. 

“He will believe that you picked her over him, even after she tried to kill him. Could you really live with yourself knowing how betrayed he will feel?” 

John’s lips quivered and he hated the hot tears that stung his eyes.

“It will hurt, but he will understand in the end,” he said through gritted teeth. “Just like he left to protect me, I will do the same for him, and when I come home he will see that there wasn’t another choice.” 

Mycroft watched as the doctor roughly wiped the tears from his face. 

“And, John, will you come home?” 

The question hit him square in the chest and he let out a whoosh of air. 

“Of course, I will come home! I will always come home to him.” 

There was a long stretch of silence as both men weighed their situation carefully. They were entering dangerous territory and neither of them knew what the result would be, but they both recognized that desperate times called for desperate measures. There was more than one life at stake this time. 

“Then I suggest we get to work.” 

Resolve hardening, John gave a curt nod and swallowed the emotion that was threatening to overcome him. He could hear the steady beep of Sherlock’s heart monitor in the other room and reminded himself that his family was in danger, his entire world, and he wasn’t going to let anything destroy them, not again. 

But as the plans came together John couldn’t help but feel like his breaths were numbered and fleeting and Sherlock wasn’t there to hear his last words. 

_I love you._


End file.
